MANILA – Another hospital has secured a compassionate special permit to use the anti-parasitic drug Ivermectin against coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).
This was after director general Eric Domingo of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced that his office granted the request of another hospital to use Ivermectin as an investigational drug against the virus.
“Two hospitals applied to us and have been given compassionate special permit on Ivermectin,” Domingo told ABS-CBN News Channel’s Headstart on Friday.
“If a hospital requests for compassionate special permit for patients, they can do that as long as the hospital takes responsibility, and of course, the patients should be fully informed,” he added.
As of now, only two hospitals have secured FDA’s nod to use Ivermectin. However, they are required to report monthly to the department as to how many were prescribed with the drug.
Domingo also took swipe at a netizen’s comments and reaction on social media that the FDA seemed to be against the use of the drug as a cure for COVID.
“That’s a common misunderstanding among the people. They’re thinking that the FDA is anti-Ivermectin but in fact we are not,” Domingo said.
“We recognize that it is a drug under investigation, that there might be a possibility it will be proven to be good. There’s [also] a possibility it will be proven to be useless against COVID-19… What the FDA is against is unregulated drugs,” he added./PN
